Call for papers Babylonia 2/2024 - Learner corpora in foreign languages

2023-04-12

What do learner corpora tell us about Foreign Language Learning?

With a new focus on language learning, corpus linguistics has undergone major developments in recent years. Using reference corpora to orientate teaching towards language usage, developing learning methods involving the consultation of corpora by learners (data-driven-learning, DDL), developing annotations for educational uses - research continues and now considers languages other than English. In this issue of Babylonia however, we focus on a specific type of corpus - learner corpora – a growing field of research as shown by new publications including KorDaF 2/22, Revue Corpus, International Journal of Learner Corpus Research, The Routledge Handbook of Second Language Acquisition and Corpora and The Routledge Handbook of Corpora and English Language Teaching and Learning, all recently published. Learner corpora offer new possibilities for better understanding learning processes, the progression  teachers can expect from their students, or the effects of educational settings on learner production. For a long time, research has focused on the grammatical and lexical progression of interlanguage to adapt course books accordingly, but corpora can also be used to analyze the communicative, pragmatic or phonological skills, and they can be used in the field of teacher education as shown by more recent research.

In the 2/2024 issue of Babylonia, we will focus on research based on large corpora of oral or written productions by foreign language learners. For example, this may involve analyzing

  • how learners' linguistic skills (communicative, pragmatic, lexical, grammatical, phonological) develop;
  • the comparative progress of learners in two languages studied in a formal context;
  • the impact of specific input on learner production;
  • instructional settings that promote rich productions;
  • possible applications for teachers who wish to evaluate their students' productions in more detail (types of research possible in the corpora);
  • possibilities of using learner corpora in foreign language teacher training.

For this issue of Babylonia, we favor short articles that discuss and/or present research results. Priority will be given to research articles based on large corpora and that present results that are useful for improving current curricula and teaching practices.

Abstracts should indicate the nature of the corpus, the type of research carried out and the applications of the corpus or research results for practical language teaching and learning. 

Empirical contributions (research projects, action-research) as well as practical contributions (teaching materials, exercises, good practices) and stances on the topic (position papers, interviews, etc.) are welcome. Babylonia favors the use of clear and easily understandable language. Length of contribution: 16,000 to 20,000 characters, including spaces (4–5 pages).

Please send abstracts (max. 2,000 characters, including references) in German, French, Italian, Romansh or English to karine.lichtenauer@unige.ch or anita.thomas@unifr.ch by August 1st, 2023.

 

Deadlines

  • submission of abstract (2'000 characters max.): August 1st, 2023
  • notification of acceptance: October 2023
  • article submission: December 31st, 2023
  • feedback from the editors and review team
  • submission of final version: May 1st, 2024
  • layout and final revision
  • publication of issue: August 2024

 

References

International Journal of Learner Corpus Research, John Benjamins

KorDaf / Zeitschrift Korpora Deutsch als Fremdsprache, Universitäts- und Landesbibliothek Darmstadt.

Jablonkai, R. R., & Csomay, E. (Eds.). (2022). The Routledge Handbook of Corpora and English Language Teaching and Learning. Taylor & Francis.

Revue Corpus 24/2023 : Ruggia, S., & Gaillat, T. (2023). Les corpus numériques pour la didactique des langues : De la formation des enseignants à l’élaboration de dispositifs d’apprentissage. https://doi.org/10.4000/corpus.8211

Tracy-Ventura, N., & Paquot, M. (2021). The Routledge Handbook of Second Language Acquisition and Corpora. Taylor & Francis.